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If I'd my druthers, I'd mention that the submission of the rulers to the English monarch secured seven years of peace. That's the "on the ground" effect.
Bremps... 06:11, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
I've never made a posting here, so my apologies if this is the wrong forum or irrelevant, but the image illustrating today's OTD does not have a tag for its US copyright status, and in fact will be copyrighted in the US for a long time to come (cf.
WP:URAA). Of course, there are plenty such images on Commons that no-one came round to doing anything about, but they should probably not be on the English Wikipedia main page.
Felix QW (
talk)
13:52, 12 July 2024 (UTC)reply
Notice to administrators: When fixing POTD errors, please update the corresponding regular version (i.e. without "protected" in the page title) in addition to the Main Page version linked below.
Would most people be willing to entertain a weekly
article for improvement on the main page? Several kinks must be worked out, but I think it would be a great idea (well duh, I'm the guy bringing it up...)
Bremps...03:46, 1 July 2024 (UTC)reply
There was a "Today's Article for Improvement" section added to the main page for a few weeks in 2013. It didn't last long and was pulled in May 2013. The subsequent discussion
is here.
Stephen07:41, 1 July 2024 (UTC)reply
We have long-established processes of dealing with vandalism, like
WP:SEMI. Therefore, I don't think that this worry should stop us. And if it were a real concern, why would the same not also apply to the rest of the main page? Schwede6600:59, 4 July 2024 (UTC)reply
Right, but the distinction is we're explicitly (or nearly so) asking people to come help out. If we do that and they can't, that would look a bit silly.
Remsense诉09:38, 5 July 2024 (UTC)reply
I think this could work out if we're clever; I'll offer the following points:
Maybe the pool should be restricted to
Vital articles or some other deliberately collated set: articles should be prioritized that people are likely to feel are both important, and that they might already feel they can help with.
We should absolutely go out of our way to grease the wheels with the articles: perhaps a AFI coordinator who volunteers their particular attention to editors engaging with them? Definitely helpful and specific maintenance tags and banners, and maybe even a short write-up on each talk page providing concrete ideas for every level of improvement.
I actually think leaning towards thematically relevant articles would be huge for engagement. If we did this yesterday, we should've had
John F. Kennedy up there.
Another idea I perennially tinker with, though it's tangential, basically amounts to "organized gnoming drives"? We pick a few concrete but discretizable tasks for some set of articles: my favorite is Copyedit the lead of every Vital Level-2 article. I think it'll attract a different crowd than existing drives do because it's communal and we can have a fun progress bar that fills up for each task.
Remsense诉14:04, 5 July 2024 (UTC)reply
I think it would be a great idea. Encourages contribution because it appears on the main page, i.e. visibility!
SWinxy (
talk)
04:56, 4 July 2024 (UTC)reply
Support in principle. I suppose the caveat is that we expect everything on the Main Page to be "presentable", so there would have to be a good vetting process to make sure that the articles were fine enough to put in front of non-Wikipedians while also weak enough to justify asking for help with them. UndercoverClassicistT·
C09:28, 5 July 2024 (UTC)reply
Oppose, a direct link to an article without any comment on what is wrong with it is unlikely to help much (and seemed not to attract many edits in the examples given by Andrew). I am happy for us to have a flashing "Get involved!" section of the Main Page to attract people into editing (for example, we could make the Community Portal more prominent), but just a few links to articles in need of improvements will not do that. Random drive-by newbies usually "help" by overlinking, removing valid redlinks or by violating ENGVAR; if we want actual improvement from people who are not already Wikipedians, we need to do more than just say "hey, edit this article". If we want Wikipedians to help, perhaps the Main Page isn't the greatest place for this. —
Kusma (
talk)
10:18, 5 July 2024 (UTC)reply
Comment this went very badly in 2013, so what makes you think it would work now? How would it be organised, where would it go on the Main Page etc.? Why weekly? There's far too little information to make an informed !vote.
Modest Geniustalk13:21, 5 July 2024 (UTC)reply
Reviewing the
discussion following the 2013 trial, there does not appear to be anything near a consensus that it "went very badly". People seem to have thought that it went well but needed adjustment. Here are some representative views from editors that are still active:
I would suggest that if it be reinstated, we have some blurbs about what those articles are about and what needs to be done with them –
Daniel Case
Wouldn't it be better to try and improve this from where it is rather than starting over again? –
Kvng
[...] many articles received noticeable increased contributions during the time they were listed on Main page. I agree with the notion of moving forward, and reinstating TAFI on Main page would be a great way of doing so. –
Northamerica1000
I would like to see TAI return to the main page, but like others I did not find the way it was being presented to be very engaging. –
Just Step Sideways
In fact as far as I can tell, the only reason that TAFI didn't become a permanent feature was that one single admin blocked it. –
Joe (
talk)
09:00, 7 July 2024 (UTC)reply
For better or worse, that's kind of what happens with English Wikipedia's decision-making traditions, where it's hard to get editors to focus on one question at a time (such as the goal of a proposal) and supporters of a proposal almost always span a wide range of views on why they support the proposal. The articles for improvement section was removed by one of the admins involved with the initiative because there was a process problem in keeping the queue filled. It was never restored as the viewpoint that prevailed in the subsequent discussion was that for a main page section to be warranted, the section should be attracting new editors, instead of just having the same participants from the articles for improvement project being involved in making improvements. However the articles for improvement project continued, since the participants found it useful, whether or not there was a corresponding main page section.
isaacl (
talk)
02:53, 8 July 2024 (UTC)reply
Support in principle, I've always supported this and I brought up shutting down AFI a couple years ago
here in village pump because of its inactivity, and I don't think they've made any more progress up bringing it back since then. I think this would be a nice way to help bring back AFI.
Lallint00:56, 6 July 2024 (UTC)reply
Oppose. That's one of the intended functions of the DYK section, though it's been a bit obscured by the incorporation of new GAs with the new articles and new expansions. Unless specifically protected, nothing linked from the Main Page is excluded from editing—I've made copyedit and clarificatory changes to TFA a couple of times, some of them are a bit dusty when they run—but the new articles at DYK are particularly an invitation to tweakage, intentionally so.
Yngvadottir (
talk)
21:51, 6 July 2024 (UTC)reply
I would go farther to say it is not really communicated at all to the average reader that they are encouraged to any special extent to help out with the articles listed at DYK.
Remsense诉23:30, 6 July 2024 (UTC)reply
@
Yngvadottir For what it's worth, I had no idea that DYK mostly consisted of scrappy articles that needed additional editing until I became a better established 'pedian.
Bremps...11:10, 8 July 2024 (UTC)reply
Oppose I 've been as critical as anyone of the WMF's various projects that have been imposed on us, but
newcomer tasks actually seems to work, I've seen newbies pop up on obscure articles within hours of them being tagged for various issues. I think this is a better tool than inviting the whole world to focus on one crappy article. Perhaps we should add links to that on the main page?
Just Step Sidewaysfrom this world ..... today22:33, 6 July 2024 (UTC)reply
I think putting newcomer tasks on the main page would risk splitting focus from the personal newcomer home pages. The WMF growth team has been investing effort into making them the starting point for newcomers, so I'd prefer to get more new users looking at their home page than the main page for suggestions on what to do.
isaacl (
talk)
23:15, 6 July 2024 (UTC)reply
One distinction I'd make clear is: I don't think this only has to be something meant for new editors. I for one would be interested in a daily list of pages that I may find engaging to hop into collaborating with others on.
Remsense诉23:33, 6 July 2024 (UTC)reply
Anyone can opt into having a home page and thus have a list of suggested tasks shown. (Not everyone gets a mentor displayed on their home page due to a shortage of mentors). I just call it a newcomer home page to try to clarify that it's the one developed by the WMF growth team.
isaacl (
talk)
01:33, 7 July 2024 (UTC)reply
I think many editors never visit the main page. If we're trying to build up new habits, personally I feel it's better to unify the initiative and encourage users of all tenures to use their home page.
isaacl (
talk)
03:54, 7 July 2024 (UTC)reply
Support. I think it is a very good idea to highlight that
Wikipedia is a work in progress on our most visible page and the
last time this was tried it seems to have worked quite well. Learning from that trial, we should probably a) focus on one article and b) include a blurb and/or explanation that gives newbies tasks that they can do. But as always the format can be refined as we go and doesn't need to be fixed here. –
Joe (
talk)
09:04, 7 July 2024 (UTC)reply
Support the AFI feature was abruptly pulled over concerns that the
WP:TAFI project would not reliably deliver content. I believe this is no longer a concern. Other concerns exist but can be addressed as we go. The featured content on the main page deserves to have something to help with editor engagement and collaboration as this is the lifeblood of the project. ~
Kvng (
talk)
14:35, 7 July 2024 (UTC)reply
Support investigating this idea further per my musings above, in hopes of hitting on a design that could really improve the Main Page and better facilitate our project and community goals.
Remsense诉14:55, 7 July 2024 (UTC)reply
Support as I feel that this would be a great idea for engagement and show folks what pages that need improvement look like.
Ktkvtsh (
talk)
18:59, 7 July 2024 (UTC)reply
Support Always wondered why we didn't have something like this on the main page. Everything is about articles that have already been improved. CFA💬00:44, 11 July 2024 (UTC)reply
That's the problem. What you've presented is a block of article text, that looks a bit similar to a TFA. But it gives no clue as to what to do. It's an article for improvement, but what improvements does it need? As a new editor looking at this what can they do to help? If I know nothing about applied science then I'll just continue scrolling.
Stephen01:01, 12 July 2024 (UTC)reply
I added a little box with tasks, to try and make it more clear what needs to be improved. Feel free to edit the page.
Bremps...04:22, 12 July 2024 (UTC)reply
This is what I was trying to get at before: if we want this to work, we have to really try something new design-wise.
Remsense诉01:15, 12 July 2024 (UTC)reply